Chocolate Cherry Chai

by Taslim Burkowicz

  At first, I thought my husband’s complaints of shortness of breath were a sign he was tired of arguing. When the doctor confirmed he had a weak heart, inherited at birth, Amma suddenly grew positive. It was as if this was the very weakness in my marriage she was looking for all along. She came to deliver money sent from Baba when my husband became too sick to work. When I became so pregnant I could no longer see my toes, Amma taught me to cook rounder roti and showed me how long tomatoes should simmer in curry, so they did not remain chunks that got stuck in your throat. My husband complained the food tasted better when I alone made it, but I knew better.

  “Roti should not look like the continent of Africa!” I joked. “Now please, rest.”

  The discussion meetings stopped. Apparently the other wives were not keen on having a roomful of men and smoke to chase out at the end of the night. I imagined making the savoury snacks Amma had taught me for the men. Instead, I made the crunchy rice spirals for myself, allowing the taste of ajwan, sesame seeds, chili, and lemon to linger on my tongue. Crunch crunch went the chakli in my mouth as I stared at the deathly green shade of our walls. Truth be told, I missed hearing the names Trotsky, Goldman, Lenin, and Marx spoken in our home, like they were beloved actors from a favourite play. I wanted someone to walk through the fenced park grounds with, someone to crack open boiled and salted peanuts on the front stoop with. My husband’s eyes were blank, as if his soul had already left. Our wardrobe, made of imitation sheesham wood, was consumed with tiny bottles of pills. When my husband spoke, his voice sounded breathy and laboured. I felt sorry for him, but when was it my turn to be looked after? I woke up at four in the morning to fry my own potatoes and dip them into green chutney. When the burning sensation of the chopped up marcha filled my mouth, I allowed tears to come. Sometimes I wailed loudly in hopes my husband would wake up from his comatose sleep. Sometimes I cried silently. The wet feeling on my cheeks was refreshing, like a religious cleansing. No one ever did come to look for me, though once I did attract a family of monkeys that peered at me, curiously silent, through the rusty bars of the kitchen window.

  Amma suggested I sew to keep up with the cost of medications. She said my husband’s brother’s wife would be more than happy to buy ready-made clothing from me. “Blood is thicker than water,” Amma said, in the next breath reminding me: “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” As such I would be expected to work for my relatives in exchange for money. Keeping track of all the clichés made my head hurt but I accepted Amma’s proposal. It was humiliating taking money from my husband’s brother’s wife, a plump woman who enjoyed chewing on red tobacco. Yes, dear mother, when life gave you lemons you made lemon juice. Or was it lemonade? Because lemon juice was what you squirted onto samosas to give them a tart flavour. You could make all the limbu nu pani you wanted in the world, but what was the point if you had no sugar?

  In any case, I began sewing. At first, I only hand-stitched, but then Baba bought me a Singer sewing machine, shipped from the United States of America. It cost eighty dollars American, but Baba paid in East African shilling. Painted a lacquered black with fancy gold lettering, this splendid machine produced the feeling that if you pulled up a stool next to it, you would surely succeed at this ancient craft. It came mounted on a mahogany cabinet with a handsome foot pedal that made a spectacular zzzshhh-zzzshhh sound. Sewing gave me access to gossip, stories gathered when I went into town to purchase supplies. Fatima’s husband, twenty years her senior, was known to have a mistress, and Zeenat’s stepchildren put chili powder in her tea.

  At first, my husband’s brother’s wife was never satisfied. “Sukaina, this sari blouse is so simple. Any one of my African helpers could have sewn it!”

  Soon, I learned to serve her a story with each delivery. “Did you know that Fatima has grey hairs now and looks like an old buddhi? And she is two years younger than me.”

  “Is that so?” Her eyes, outlined in Indian kohl, shone like two pools of still black water. She pulled me into her house. “Oh, you poor pregnant thing, you have walked far to deliver me clothes. I have heard Fatima has had several miscarriages. If that will not age you rapidly, what will?”

  In my ninth month of pregnancy, the doctor came to our house. But he did not come for me. He came for my husband, whose skin had turned yellow and sallow and looked like it was falling off his body. I could hear now what they would end up saying about me: “Did you hear? Sukaina’s husband is dying. So shameless she was, discussing men’s affairs with abandon, serves her right to raise her baby alone.”

  “Your husband’s heart is evidently too weak to make it,” said the Gujarati doctor in our living room. He pushed up his spectacles, making no mention of the great debt owed to him. “Your husband might live a week or a year at most.”

  Amma sat on the edge of the cot, and I could see her thoughts float above her head: “I told you. All that glitters is not gold.” For the first time in months I snapped out of my own self-pity and realized I was losing my life partner. In Hindi, my jeevan saathi. The weight of these words was untranslatable in any other language. To me, it meant my partner’s body was forever intertwined with my own.

  At this moment the house was supposed to swallow itself whole. I closed my eyes, but when I opened them again everything was still the same, down to the doctor packing up his battered leather bag. I wanted to be the perfect housewife, never mind I was so angry at the thought of losing my husband my insides felt like they were bubbling in hot cooking oil.

  I decided to go back to making my husband crooked roti and chunky curry. I spent the days by his bedside remembering the young boy who would open his mouth to shout teasing remarks at me, revealing a set of perfect white teeth, or run his hand through the inches of black hair piled on top of his head that would cause his old auntie to chase him down the street with scissors. His old auntie had the best recipe for turmeric and cumin samosas on the street, and I never had the chance to learn it.

  I became the storyteller and my husband, perhaps for the first time in his life, became the listener. At first, his response to my stories was, “Wow, what a Romeo your husband was!” As if the young man in the stories was not himself. And so I put back his life story for him, listing a race he had won in the fifth standard or a point he had made at a discussion meeting. His comments became shorter, at first just a word, “really?” then a thoughtful “hmmmmm” and finally just a stream of air with barely any effort put in at all. The incessant chattering I had done for weeks finally came to an end. In the last hour I found myself talking alone to my belly.

  Two days after he died, the baby was born. “Here I am!” she screamed, with a mighty cry. I could not believe such perfection could come out of such distress. I put my nose to her crown and inhaled her baby aroma: cinnamon and boiled milk. The deep recesses left in the bed by my husband’s body were no longer empty: she fit perfectly in the pocket where his head would have been.

  Baby Nargis cried out in the middle of the night, sounding like a newly born lamb bleating. She curled up her fists and drank breastmilk greedily. She opened her bleary eyes and looked at me with infant’s fatigue. I stared into her eyes. Two tiger marbles stared back at me, glassy and round. Her eyes looked just like the sunshine that sparkled from the water within a well. And just as I did when I was four years old, I reached for the glitter that glinted off the water’s seamless surface, and did not think twice before falling in.

  ***

  I HAD NO CHOICE but to move in with Amma and Baba. But nothing mattered so long as I had my baby with me, with her delicious smell of siro semolina dessert topped with sultan raisins, and her eyes coloured the same golden shade. Baba said women need not understand finances, and I had lost track of the amount I owed my husband’s doctor. I had been wise enough, or lucky enough, to learn the trade of sewing. At one time I used to share gossip with my sales, but now I was punctured with holes of pain, and stories seeped through me like a sie
ve. I travelled with Baby Nargis bundle-wrapped around my chest, in the African style. When I walked door to door to drop off garments, I knew what people whispered: “She thought she could walk alongside her husband and talk politics. Those eyes that were like precious Indian gold, they just look like plain old turmeric now. And that skin the colour of almond pudding? Now more like a cracked almond.”

  On one of my daily runs to the market, I was greeted by the local store merchant, a man that smelled of sweat and garlic. He looked like someone’s grandfather, with a skeletal frame and a pregnant belly. His face was dark, leathery, and puckered with craters. I did not purchase produce from him. Instead I told Amma flies were feasting on the juice of his broken-skinned tomatoes. A week later, I found the store merchant in our living room. Amma forced chai and snacks upon him: orange balls of kachori stacked upon one another in a mini Egyptian pyramid from one of my dearly departed husband’s books. Baba was playing chess and discussing politics, pastimes he never partook of with my own husband. Baba now said my husband had been a no-good socialist with soft politics. I was a no-good socialist too, but no one cared because I was a woman.

  Baby Nargis cried when Amma tried to pry her from my chest. I fed the baby special chai, sweetened by a blend of African cherry orange, toasted almonds, sugar, and cocoa. I fed her mashed pieces of cooked plantains. She searched under my shirt to nurse, so I took her to the day-cot in the other room while the store merchant stuffed his cheeks with tobacco. The mini volcanic lumps on his face went up and down, up and down. Blackish red juice leaked out of his sealed lips like molten lava.

  “Go ahead and make yourself useful, daughter, and serve this to the store merchant,” said Amma, handing me a cup of ginger chai.

  The store merchant laughed loudly, startling Baby Nargis. I handed him the tea and rushed off.

  From the kitchen, I could hear Amma telling the store merchant how resourceful I was with a spool of thread and a needle, referring to his torn socks. I rubbed my ears hard, hoping to erase her words from my mind. Amma came up behind me as I stirred a pot of lentils, masala, and fried onions. For a while she said nothing. All we heard was the men’s harsh laughter contrasted with the baby’s gentle gurgling.

  Amma sighed, squatting by the mud stove. “Sukaina, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. Your Baba and I are too old to look after you … ”

  “I will not marry the store merchant!” Baby Nargis dropped my bangle. It made a lovely clinking noise, like anklets on dancing Gujarati girls. I remembered watching plays with my husband during the Hindu Navratri festival, a lifetime ago. “He is the same age as Baba. How can he look after me?”

  “Baba has to look after your unmarried sisters. You need a husband and a father for Nargis. The store merchant has acquired a bed of wealth to sleep on. Think of your good fortune! I would rather you have been happy with your first husband, but I told you time and time again … ”

  “I know. All that glitters is not gold. But I could not have known he was going to die. You think marrying an old baba is what I deserve?”

  “Sukaina, wake up. You are not a child anymore.” Amma bent over to pick up the fallen bangle. “Cavorting with the menfolk discussing communism is not becoming on a lady. Why do you think we choose to send boys to school over girls? You are supposed to take care of your home, your family. I advised you to marry a man richer than you. Beta, did you listen? Do you want to be a burden to us?”

  And so I married the store merchant. No matter how much lavender perfume I sprayed, the house smelt of his ginger root underarms. I topped curries with pools of oil as he preferred. He ate the same amount of rice nightly and wore the same set of beige clothes to work. He ignored Baby Nargis, asking she be left in her own cot at night. I agreed, and slept alongside her.

  Life fell into a pattern, but it was if the colour had drained from it. I started talking to my first husband while hanging laundry and hand-grinding flour. Every new day I awoke, I tried to relive the past. First, I recollected memories chronologically, starting with him and me playing kickball in the street as children. There were of course entire segments of days I could not remember, or hours spent arguing with him I would forever regret.

  I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly I saw a kaleidoscope of emerald jewels exploding, just so I would not cry out in front of the baby. It was then I discovered the trick of selecting only my favourite memories for replay. For three days in a row I could relive our wedding. I unfolded love letters and traced the baby’s tiny fingers over the ink. The letters, written in Gujarati, sometimes had English phrases. I imagined they said: I love you, sweet darling. But when I became pregnant with the store merchant’s child I knew I could no longer carry on as an empty pistachio shell of a wife, married to the memories of her first husband.

  When the baby arrived, Nargis liked to kiss his miniature, petal soft nose. For a brief while, I imagined the store merchant would accept Nargis. I became unexpectedly pregnant with my third soon after giving birth. By now, I no longer felt trapped in my marriage, for I had found companionship in my children. I did not even miss reenacting the days of the past in my mind. I was too busy crushing mangoes into a pulp for the babies and my time was spent showing them how to make designs from stones in our rocky courtyard. But the older Nargis became, the more the store merchant began to despise her. If he did not sell enough merchandise in a day, it was her fault. If my curry was not salty enough, it was because Nargis has distracted me. I used to think my heart bled when my first husband died, but for the first time I understood one of my mother’s clichés: “Your heart will only truly bleed for your children.”

  “She cannot be here,” the store merchant said on the day Nargis turned four. Nargis cowered behind me with sad eyes the colour of burnt oil. I set the newborn in the hammock hanging between two sticks, holding my breath as he continued. “Look woman, Nargis can learn the art of housekeeping from your first husband’s brother’s family.”

  “She is learning plenty from me. She is a big help … ”

  “Are you dumb enough to think this is a discussion? If you do not agree you will leave this house at once — without your children.” Amma’s voice played in my head. But this had never glittered, Amma. It was rusted copper at best.

  When the store merchant was at work, I decided to run away with the children. My first husband had an aunt in Mombasa. She had moved there after raising him. Once, as a small child, I had even eaten one of her samosas. I began to steal money from the store merchant’s trouser pockets. I did not know much about the commute from Kampala to Mombasa; what little I knew about railroad travel, I learned from Amma’s father, my nanaji, who had been a railroad worker when he first arrived in Uganda from India. The first operational railway in East Africa, he said, was as a two foot gauge trolley line, starting out in the port of Mombasa, reaching a mere eleven kilometres. In 1898, when he was laying tracks through the East African jungles, a group of lions attacked his colleagues, tearing their heads off. How lucky he had been to escape! Nanaji could entertain you for hours about how he got to explore the Maasai lands, about his challenges building tracks high in the Kenyan Highlands. I imagined the railroad was now a luxurious form of travel compared to the days when Nanaji had to use transporter wagons and cables just to lay down a few tracks. I started inquiring with local street vendors, but most had no idea about train routes or departure times. Finally, one African grinned from behind a stack of coconuts, holding a machete in his hand.

  “Why lady,” he said in Swahili, “the train departs from the station at nine a.m. It takes three days to travel from Kampala to Mombasa. Have you no way of receiving the news?” The coconut seller informed me tickets were sold by variance of three classes. First was reserved for British and European travellers, second for Indians, and third for Africans, mainly workers that got off at the local stops dotted on the tracks. Indians could book cabins with beds. He described the majestic Kenyan highlan
ds I would pass through which had so many valleys and peaks it looked as though a giant had placed fuzzy green blankets over the bodies of his naked pregnant wives. He said the zebra herds I would see looked exactly like the British imported chocolate and vanilla candy sticks sold at local snack-shacks. I saved cents to buy these very candies for Nargis. The coconut seller finished with a laugh: “The British pacify us with their licorice as they take our land. The British bought you Indians as well, correct? What was your price?”

  By the time the store merchant could piece together that I was missing, I would be looking out at the soft haze of yellow making up the African plains, blurring by just like a spinning top. Auntie’s address was written in Gujarati on an old postcard saved in a rosewood jewellery box. I placed the card in the purse I wore looped over my chest, and hoped she would receive me.

  The train was more breathtaking than I had imagined. It was a British beast that chugged and sang out shrilly, demanding everyone watch it arrive at the station. Steam surrounded us like the fog rolling in on the peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro. A man in a tidy uniform leaned out, helping us swing aboard, and when we did, the train shook like the beans I tossed in a bowl before cooking. But the station itself was terrifying. Older passengers showed us black holes where teeth should be. People cursed at us to buy peanuts or lime drinks through the windows. The train rolled ahead, stopping along the way for African workers. The children were the most excited when we passed the plains where Maasai people were scattered. They wore bright rose-red clothing and rainbow-beaded jewellery with knit shawls. Dopey cattle lazily followed behind them. Even though they held pointed spears that could dice you into a million pieces, they seemed like a peaceful people roaming the plains. The children had seen Maasai in the towns before, but there the warriors looked like circus people, entertaining locals and tourists by doing high jumps on demand for a payment of five shillings. Sugar plantations and fields of sugar canes zipped by. When I used sugar to sweeten my chai, I never imagined it to be housed in a container the size of small city.